I play often coop with my friends against the AI. The start can be hard, if you start right next to a strong AI you may lose, before any of your friends can come to the rescue.
But if you survive the start and early midgame you've almost always won. Then winning is only a formality, and not actually a challenge anymore. If you make the AI stronger you almost always die in the early game.
Nevertheless it's still balanced enough to be fun till the late midgame before it becomes boring.
As a solution, please add a feature that has been proven to be working in other games:Add a super strong enemy in the endgame, as an optional feature of course. Which is so insanely strong, that you must beat it with special tactics, using all your special abilities and that of your allies.
Yes, I mean: Add an End-Boss! Like an Alien-Race, coming from outside the galaxy with insane powers, for a really challenging boss-fight. Oh: And of course it should be possible to configure the time when it comes in, everybody has their own playing speed, and a different time when it's his or her endgame.
While I agree that the endgame needs improvement, I don't know that a new enemy appearing out of nowhere is the solution.
We had this in Stellaris, and it was always great fun, and really exciting at the end. Stellaris is in that way really similar to Sins of a Solar Empire 2. I want this game to be its own thing, but that, I would really love it in this game.
Hello! This is definitely an interesting proposal, but is unlikely to come about anytime soon due to just how involved something like that may be, it might be something we explore more actively after the scenario park or closer to 4th faction dlc release. I would be open to hearing other suggestions as well
I totally agree, that once you've passed the mid game and survived its very easy to beat the AI.
Now it's not easy to provide suggestions, because this definitely is caused by some mechanics AI uses and I can't say I perfectly understand them in Sins 2.
For example in Sins 1 the problem was the upkeep. AI was going fast to 2000 and their income was dropping drastically once you captured some fat planets, so once you kill the main fleet they had a hard time to rebuild it.
I see something similar here, at least I suppose it's something like this. I also see that after the main fleet is destroyed and you are taking ground - AI still wouldn't pump defences, bases can be barely developed on the from planets.
I also guess the AI should become smarter, and use the special abilities for scouting/scouts for identifying the weak spots (actually now the new AI is already much better in this department) and attacking key planets instead of trying to recapture. Also AI should become more evil, and instead of always taking the hard fight on the heavily defended planet - maybe jump to the next one (this way we maybe will finally use the jump inhibitors )
Also AI should be using the special abilities all the time they can and in a smart way (at least smarter way).
I also think that difficulty scaling should be done with more smart features activated for AI instead of giving them unlimited resources (is it still like this in Sins 2?)
I totally understand this involves some heavy work on the AI, but I think it's worth it.
Hope this helps!
I would love this!Some cool end game events would really liven up the galaxy map!i can only think of currently;
- Pirate horde ( 2000 point? ) jumps to star and goes after a random player ( or have a popup where everyone can place bounty down or something )
- at x time a strong, fortified planet appears ( pirate homeworld? ) 1st player to take it down can add a pirate capship to their fleet or some other special reward / powerful item / guaranteed artifiact drop?
- would also be a good way to introduce the new 4th faction through having 4th faction vanguard fleets jump to the star / go after all player or launch from a newly, appearing planet / wormhole?
Sins 1 player here but my idea for an end game idea would probably work for Sins 2 too: Galactic war breaks out, all relationships deteriorate, resulting in the breakup of old alliances, traditional friends going at each others throats, and the slow formation of new alliances. I haven't been able to get this to work in Sins 1 because there's no way to reduce relationship counts with buffs.
And regarding the end boss idea => I've modded my Sins 1 so that the Shivans (from Freespace 2) attack after several hours of gameplay. The attacks become larger and more difficult to repel with time. It definietly adds a cool aspect to the end game.
Another idea would be a planetary collapse with a long warning time, which drastically changes the configuration of the solar system. The affected planet explodes, nearby planets would be damaged and thrown into new orbits.
This form of complaint seems fairly common in strategy and 4X games to me. Certainly in single-player with the human playing against AI, the AI starts at an advantage but loses that over time as the human player catches up, equalises, and eventually dominates.
And in some ways, that may even be by design and the problem is more that the session takes too long to end. Imagine a PvP situation where both sides are similarly matched and one player's fleet/army gets (almost) completely wiped out. I imagine that just conceding the game then and there might not be uncommon, if there is no realistic way to make a comeback. Unless you are facing some FFA scenario where they could strike committable alliances or similar. Otherwise, better snowballing tools or victory conditions that can end the game sooner?
That said, separate end-game crises to spice up those situations could also be nice. The grand-daddy of the related genre had that too, with the Antarans from MoO II. Who, incidentally, weren't "just" end-game content but rather ramped up over time. So yeah, an extra-galactical threat could work well.
Or, go in the opposite direction and introduce more mechanics that make it harder to keep a very large empire under control. Rebellions and corruption are population mechanics, more propensity for enemies to ally against a common enemy is another.
I think the main problem is the current victory objectives.
So yes, why not an end boss like a huge captial ship or a mirror fleet that would teleport the 2 fleets to a special sector, a special planet to capture at the end of the game that would appear as mentioned in a so-called prophecy or even the whole galaxy turns against you and you have to hold out for 15 min. So many possibilities! It's up to you Stardock, we're counting on you.
Perhaps also, if fleet size increases as the number of players decreases, this could help to make the game more challenging (10 players with a fleet of 2,000 can go up to 4,000 fleets with only 4 players left, for example).
Random musings on end game content - I'm skipping the 4th option as I'll do a separate post for that. I actually did do a very long and time consuming post, but when I tried posting my account logged out or something. (Not sure if it's just me but logging in here seems incredibly glitchy!!!)
aigor85 notes that after the AI's main fleet is destroyed and you're advancing it won't pump out defences, and bases on planets are barely developed. Yes Zerg rushes can work - in fact as an R&D\economy focused turtler they're incredibly annoying\challenging, but if they're broken then it can be basically game over, only mopping up to do. A recent(ish) friends v Hard AI match saw 1 defending an asteroid system, 2 of us helping out at times, and eventually when we broke whichever attack wave it was and pushed through, the enemy had practically nothing and we probably spent as much time bombing enemy planets and colonising them as we did actually fighting enemy forces. There was nothing in defence!!!
Likewise there's really no point in building jump inhibitors since the AI attacks a front line planet and only rarely retreats when the balance of power swings too far against it. Why waste resources and slots on something that won't have any real impact? If the AI struck deep however or retreated as soon as overwhelming reinforcements were brought up … Alternatively what if Phase Jump Inhibitors could affect connected systems? That is the enemy would be forced to either advance an additional system to wipe out the inhibitor, or capture the system so as to 'stabilise' the phase lane? Probably a bridge too far as you could chain the effect, and it wouldn't be consistent with past use but ...
Malacai8472 mentioned Pirate hordes, and certainly the SoaSE1 hordes could be as big or even bigger threat than AI players. With sufficient defences though they just became XP.
DIannuzzelli suggests relationships deteriorating, but that only works if diplomacy is involved. If the teams are fixed, or you're IRL friends and allies playing FFA, degrading relationships only affects the AI side of things.
Shadowhal mentions the late game issue is common in strategy and 4x games, especially single player v AI.
For those familiar with the Total War line of games, the end game can often be something of an annoying grind. Yes you control a quarter or even half the map, no there's no real peer threats, but it takes time to crush all the last holdouts to achieve the Long Victory, or even Ultimate Victory - depending on game.
Medieval 2 : Total War has the Mongolian invasion about midway through, and the Timurid invasion late game, while Thrones of Britannia has 3 or 4 Viking fleet invasions as the Ultimate Victory. I believe Shogun 2 has something whereby all enemy factions go to war with you once your power crosses a particular threshold. For M2:TW, so long as your cities aren't near the Mongolian invasion they are basically just another expanding faction, albeit a temporarily overpowered one. In ToB it's pretty hard to avoid the invasions as you have enemy fleets from the south, east, and northwest of the British Isles - can't recall if there's a 4th fleet. Overpowered invasions from every direction are something of a challenge!!!
Pretty much all the games have some sort of corruption and rebellion mechanic, which is rather annoying if you are trying for 100% map control! SoaSE2 has upkeep, which overlaps with corruption, and SoaSE1's culture was more akin to the rebellion mechanic. SoaSE2 treats culture as a buff\debuff rather than a rebellion mechanic. The TEC Primacy does have a rebellion technology that I think ties into their culture, plus the Jiskun Expeditionary Force's Send Phase Space Raid is loosely comparable. Many of the Total War games do have rebels or bandits or somesuch, but they tend to be annoying rather than cataclysmic. SoaSE2 tends to be similar - you need defences in all your systems to avoid the issue, but usually nothing too heavy.
The Age of Empires series includes wonders - a unique structure that grants victory if it survives long enough. This is somewhat similar to the Civilisation series' space race - build the components of the space ' wonder,' launch it to Alpha Centauri, and if you survive long enough, and nobody launches a faster 'rocket', you win. Other wonders in the game simply provide special bonuses. The Heroes of Might and Magic series also includes a wonder option for each faction, though you need to find the Grail etc to construct it, and this structure provides significant wealth, increased recruitment, and a faction specific benefit.
How does this all relate to SoaSE2? What if each race (3 at present, 4 after Harbinger), or faction (currently 6, 7 or 8 after Harbinger?) had a unique structure they could build which provided special bonuses? Yes Trade for TEC, Unity for the Advent, and Phase Resonance for the Vasari already parallels this, but what if a single massive structure provided weak percentage bonuses, both for civilian and military purposes? What if this was something which could be started at Tier 1 - and directly functional, but only completed or fully upgraded with the required Tier 5 Civilian and Mitary technologies? As with the 'an enemy titan has been constructed' warning messages, completion of each stage of the enemy 'command centre,' 'enemy wonder,' or 'enemy superstructure' could come with a warning. I'm not suggesting wonder victories for SoaSE2, but if the structure were powerful enough at Tier 5, and enemies didn't have their own equivalent, it could force a deep strike, or is that the idea behind playing with Capital Victory On mode? We play with that off so the enemy has to be completely exterminated to win. Oh perhaps upgrade slots like starbases to allow customisation? Less of a weapon system focus, and more utility options, and\or planetary structures\items, to reflect that's it's supposed to provide whole of empire benefits rather than simply affect a single system?
On a related note, SinsMultiPlayer mentioned Stellaris. According to a wiki for that, the standard ships in that are corvettes, frigates, destroyers, cruisers, battleships, and titans. Seem familiar? But there's also a special class of ships apparently called colossal ships - Colossus, Juggernaut, and Star-Eater. The Colossus is designed to wipe out planets, the Star-Eater wipes out stars, but the Juggernaut is described as "the mobile center of operations of an entire empire, equipped with shipyards that can construct, repair, and upgrade ships". There is a hard cap on colossal ships, while SoaSE1 and SoaSE2 both limit each faction to deploying a single titan at a time. Some players rush to build the titan, and of course Medium AI builds the titan after about 3 hours, while Unfair AI does so after about 1 hour.
What if, like the wonder\superstructure above there were a multistage 'boss' ship? Yes the titan is this to some degree, but as already noted some players rush this, and higher levels of AI get it fast. Whereas titans can be destroyed by enemy fleets without a titan or starbase, this hypothetical 'supership' would be for those games that run really long i.e. 3+++ hours, rather than 1+ hour games. If it followed the same philosophy as the wonder\superstructure then perhaps each stage could be paid for, and built, once the tech was researched, but only launched once all required tech research was completed. Said ship would require epic construction time e.g. 1 hour build straight time at standard speed, not counting delays for research. (As an option, build time could be based on map size so large maps require more time?) Obviously replacement builds would be ... problematic!!! Each race, as opposed to faction, would have their own Super Star Destroyer ... er I mean supership, perhaps with minor flavour tweaks - TEC Enclave focus on defensive or support abilities, TEC Primacy focus on offensive power, with weapon loadouts perhaps reflecting this, but the basic hull would be shared because such a monumental design would have required an all in effort, not just a single faction. In the case of the Vasari, such a ship would also provide an alternative to the Jarrasul Evacuator as a home for Vasari civilians. Lest anyone complain it's simply another titan for your fleet, while technically true, I'd suggest this vessel lumber around rather than hurtle around like Vasari Titans can - 900 or so in speed!
As an alternative option, what if rather than building the ship, you built the components as each stage unlocked, and could build extras, but then assembled them for the final ship? This might be getting to far removed from how SoaSE2 works however.
Other semi-random ideas:
In SoaSE1's Stellar Phenomena DLC there was an event whereby a Mad Vasari Titan belonging to the 'Mad Dark Fleet Remnants' randomly wandered around a star system and shot at almost everyone. This was a significant challenge for smaller, weaker forces, but far less of a threat if you had a powerful fleet, especially if you had a titan of your own. This could parallel an invasion, or waves of invasions, by the unknown threat that wiped out the old Vasari Empire and has spent the last 10,000 years chasing them.
Speaking of titans, mad or otherwise, are there some design similarities?
There's a number of other possible events in Stellar Phenoma that may be relevant, or provide inspiration for other possibilities: https://sinsofasolarempire.fandom.com/wiki/Random_Events
Since the last post worked, I'll endeavour to cover the points I raised in my lost 4th faction and end game musings. Sorry this one will be long too. Hmm maybe I can drop in some Spoiler sections so folk can extend\skip content as they like? It'd make it easier for folk who want to simply scroll past this entire post!
(Sorry, the Spoiler tag doesn't seem to be working for me. Anyone know how to get it to, or if it does?)
So what do we know about the Vasari's unknown enemy?
Only the creation of the Trader Emergency Coalition stemmed the tide, yet the forces of a single Vasari colony world, albeit forces which may have grown in the 10,000 years they were fleeing, rival those of the entire TEC. Worse, 10 years after the start of the 'Vasari-TEC War,' the Advent returned. Distracted by war on 2 fronts, Vasari forces were able to advance even further into TEC space. A further 5 years of hard fighting saw all sides opting for Entrenchment, and after a further 10 years of constant fighting, Diplomacy. Such efforts ultimately failed, resulting in Rebellion.
After 25 years of atrocities the TEC Primacy\Rebels want to wipe out their ruthless alien and deviant enemies, accepting Pirates as allies without question, while TEC Loyalist\Enclave want to fort up and make further fighting too costly for their foes. On the Advent side the Loyalist\Wrath are still committed to vengeance and retribution against lesser species while the Advent Rebels\Reborn sense corruption in the Unity and wish to cleanse this deviation and establish diplomatic, if not necessarily peaceful, relations with the TEC and Vasari.
As for the Vasari? They've split into two factions - Exodus, and Alliance. The former want to strip-mine all the resources they can and leave the TEC and Advent behind them - the original "Evacuate, Siphon, Run" philosophy. The Alliance by contrast believe it is time to stop running, and take a stand alongside co-operating TEC (Enclave) and TEC (Reborn) forces.
Now why's the Loyalist\Rebel issue relevant? Quite frankly it's possibly not. But there's 2 factors that could be. If the forces of the Old Vasari Empire which ruled hundreds of races and likely thousands of worlds, were incapable of defeating the unknown foe, why would TEC or Advent forces suffice? Remember the Vasari forces that equal the TEC are the product of a single evacuated colony world! If the resources of thousands of worlds and hundreds of races are insufficient, why would the resources of three races and only hundreds of worlds? Worse, TEC forces rely on primitive and makeshift technologies supported by mass production and heavy firepower. Advent forces are roughly on par with the Vasari, but they're heavily reliant on PsiTech, and cheap, lightly armoured ships with weak hulls. The other factor that may be relevant is the possibility, remote though it may be, that the corruption in the Advent Unity is due to external manipulation. Invisible manipulation by hidden or invisible foes is not an unknown concept. Are the Advent Wraith being manipulated by Vasari's foe? As I say, it's a longshot but not impossible.
Okay now for a seemingly entirely different tangent - Derelicts and Phase Jump Inhibitors
According to SoaSE1 lore neither the TEC nor the Advent are capable of manufacturing inhibitors. Instead the TEC rely on those they steal from the Vasari, and the Advent rely on those they steal from the Vasari. As for the Vasari? They replicate them using nanotechnology, but they are unable to fathom how they work. In SoaSE1: Rebellion the Vasari Rebels appear to have gained some understanding as they can use inhibitors to both radically slow inbound enemies, as well as delay the departure of enemies. Given SoaSE2 inhibitors prevent enemy forces jumping out rather than merely delaying them, and since Vasari Alliance appear to have no special phase technology benefits - they're diplomacy focused, there may be some sort of unresolved retcon thing happening.
As for derelicts? I don't think I've seen any lore on the subject, so it's just a matter of interpreting visuals. Here's a pair of images so you can compare for yourselves:
While both appear bronze, or perhaps gold, as opposed to the dull iron grey appearance of TEC ships, shiny mirrorlike silver finish of Advent forces, or grey carapace of the Vasari, the derelict, which has an awesome design IMHO, is a pyramid shaped structure with a large rounded gem on each side, and necrotic green lights showing - primarily on the exposed underside, but also in patches near the lower edge on each side of the pyramid. By contrast the inhibitor is comprised of 3 half spheres on tubular arms extending from a cylindrical core. They have more in common with each other perhaps than with the spiky ring of a Vasari Phase Gate, but that's not saying much!
Obviously some alien race designed the inhibitor, but was it one that had vanished by the time the Vasari discovered the inhibitors and started replicating them, or one they conquered and stole the technology from? If the latter then why didn't they get that race to explain how they work? Yes, being enslaved might make them reluctant to talk, but the Old Vasari Empire no doubt had ways to 'encourage' its workforce.
The derelicts are discovered in TEC or TEC adjacent space. Given their custom design that's another technologically advanced faction that was present in the area sometime before the present. Derelict means abandoned property, or perhaps an abandoned ship. It's not clear if these pyramids are, or were, ancient ships, stations, or part of such, and whether the damage on them is the result of age - life in the void is harsh, or battle damage etc.
To my mind the derelict design is reminiscent of Stargate's Goa'uld - Egypt and gold decorated. By contrast the inhibitor reminds me of the Elder Scrolls' Dwemer or Dwarven armour, the Sphere\Sentry, even some of the abandoned infrastructure - a golden or bronze Steampunk type design. Am I reading waaay more into this than the designers intended or want? No clue. But the two items mean 1, possibly 2 unknown races - it depends if they originate from the same race or separate ones.
Third point for consideration - Harbinger
It may be entirely unintentional but is the Harbinger name for the 4th race expansion intended to signify something? A harbinger is "a person or thing that announces or indicates the approach of something; forerunner" and came into English etymology is C12: from Old French herbergere, from herberge lodging, from Old Saxon heriberga; compare Old High German heriberga army shelter; see harry, borough.
So the 'Harbinger' 4th faction are the forerunners of something to come? Are they the heralds of the unknown foe following the Vasari, or something else?
Harbinger is also the oldest and largest of the Reapers, a highly-advanced machine race of synthetic-organic starships in the Mass Effect universe. The Leviathan race had observed that biological lifeforms would regularly create synthetic constructs that would rebel, then wipe them out. They opted to create an intelligence with a mandate to preserve life at all costs. Yeah that worked well!!! It eventually concluded the Leviathans were part of the problem, slaughtered all those it could find, and using their genetic material, created Harbinger. Over the following billion plus years the Reapers would hibernate between cycles, awaiting the next rise of galactic civilisation. Upon reaching the desired level Reapers would move in, and harvest the spacefaring races of the galaxy - turning them into raw genetic 'paste' to be used in the construction of new Reapers, and their minds used to form the newborns' gestalt consciousnesses.
Harbinger is also significant as the controller of the Collectors. The Protheans, similar to the Vasari, developed an immense galaxy-wide empire encompassing many other spacefaring species. Early in their own expansion they encountered a hostile machine intelligence that threatened to overwhelm them so they opted to unite all sentient organic life under their empire. The Prothean Empire was able to hold off the enemy machines for millennia. The Reaper assault however saw their entire empire systematically exterminated in mere centuries, with a few subjected to extensive genetic experimentation, cybernetic implantation (Advent anyone?) and turned into a slave race.
Fourth and final point - the Vasari Grey Goo Paradigm
The Kortul Devastator uses nanites to Jam Weapons, and Volatile Nanites to increase damage to enemy vessels when they're attacked, as well as to make them explode on death, damaging nearby enemies.
The Antorak Marauder's Phase Restoration coats a friendly capital ship in nanites for a short duration to shunt it into phase space should it receive lethal damage. Once in phase space it restores a significant fraction of the hull, shields, and antimatter.
The Vulkoras Desolator's Disintegration Beam fires a stream of nanites at an enemy target doing damage to an enemy's shields, or significant damage to unprotected armour and\or hull instead.
The Skirantra Carrier's Nanite Armour both restores armour and bolsters armour strength, Repair Cloud disperses a cloud of nanite to restore a modest amount of hull damage on all nearby friendly ships, and Replicate Forces uses construction nanites to near instantly create copies of a targeted vessel.
Hmm now where have we heard of replication before? Ooh! Stargate SG-1\Stargate Atlantis anyone? The Replicators were a highly-advanced machine race accidently created by a childlike android as toys to play with. She lost control, they destroyed her world, and somewhere along the way ended up in another galaxy whereupon they waged war seeking to consume it all, especially advanced technology. Upon encountering the remains of their maker they developed human forms and caused further issues, including in the Milky Way.
In Atlantis the Asuran 'race' was discovered. Originally thought to be surviving Ancients, they were eventually revealed to be nanites that had developed the capacity to present an image akin to their creators. The Ancients had developed them as a weapon of war, but eventually deemed them unfit for purpose and dispatched a fleet of Ancient warships to wipe out every last trace of them - obviously that failed. And yes they caused issues when the outside world got in touch with them too!
How's this all relevant to 4th faction or the foe the Vasari are fleeing? What if Vasari nanite R&D occurring on or around the inner worlds resulted in the creation of a synthetic foe, an artificial entity that is hostile to either its Vasari creators, or organics in general, though possibly hijacking organics to operate as 'zombie platforms' ala Star Trek Borg as opposed to Stargate Asurans?
Vasari nanotechnology can be found in the crystal and metal seeking nanites used on planets, various versions used to upgrade planets to higher levels, nanite survey swarms to seek out exotics, matter hypercompilers operate at a molecular level so may use nanotechnology, organic reclamation nanites clearly involve it, nanomedicine uses it, and compliance nanites keep the populace … useful. A synthetic or nanite faction could likely tweak things to suit its purposes, assuming organics have a purpose.
If the unknown foe is a rogue nanotech faction, it could explain the rapid spread of it - corrupt the nanotech in a new system, use that to seize control. The Vasari would not be expecting to be betrayed by their technology while the non-Vasari would be helpless. The blind assault by the majority of the Dark Fleet could have been either obliterated or hijacked - multiple Phase Space Inhibitors would have prevented any retreat, mass production and\or replication would have allowed for unexpected numbers of enemy ships to be in the system. AI garrisons could be possible - just use dumb AI relying on a master AI to provide higher level direction. Best case scenario the 'organic Vasari' would have had to run gauntlets of firepower to destroy the inhibitors in the hope of escape. Worst case scenario the 'synthetic Vasari' were taking over the Dark Fleet ships and adding them to their own side. What's worse, being outnumbered, outgunned, and seeing your entire fleet getting wiped out, or seeing your entire fleet converting to the enemy force, with zero communication from whoever or whatever they are as they destroy you? Something drove a battle-hardened crew mad with fear, but barring Advent like psychic or telepathic assault, the trigger would have had to have been what the crew saw or experienced. I suppose mental assault is experience too but ...
If such a 'race' existed it would most likely start by using Vasari vessels and designs. Even without being particularly creative, it would be capable of building and using the Vasari Nano Assembly Factory, and using Replicate Forces, possibly creating permanent copies, potentially rivalling the TEC's mass production capabilities - especially for garrison forces. Advent mind control abilities would mostly have zero impact because telepathic or psychic abilities require a mind, not a synthetic network. And Vasari offensive or debuff use of nanites might be negated if the rogue Vasari nanotechnology were able to subsume the 'organic Vasari' nanites. Might dumb TEC abilities actually work best? That would be consistent with Tau'ri er Terran precedent right, not mentioning any particular universes of course?
Would such a race bother with planets? Raw resources aside, what purpose would it have? It doesn't need a population, it can just replicate in space. And if AI garrisons are an option - dumb AI could simply harvest local materials and build its own planetary fleet to prevent an organic invasion. Destroying planets ala the Vasari Exodus Core Stripper could actually be highly useful - prevents organics from regaining the planet, and provides a massive resource boost.
Of course while the AI Vasari might use organic Vasari ships, would they keep exactly the same abilities? Or would they modify them e.g. Evacuator Colonise ability turned into a strip core ability? Would hijacking of enemy ships via nanotechnology be possible? Might they have some sort of on-death racial ability e.g. launch a grey goo torpedo and attempt to hijack a replacement ship?
If TEC or Advent ships were seized\hijacked\whatever, what abilities would they keep? Vasari nanites being able to do Advent telepathic assaults for instance would be silly.
And would capital ships and titans be immune? Could such an enemy hijack your titan?
Does this seem plausible? It would sort of tie in with the Harbinger point above - the ME one, not the etymological one. If true, this could provide a simple unknown foe design option - tweaks rather than anything major, with the tech tree and infrastructure being the big difference point. Of course that assumes playable faction. If the intent is an unplayable threat - either campaign only, AI playable only, or even end game challenge only, then some of the specifics e.g. abilities, as well as nuances and standard balance issues could be completely ignored or custom designed. Might this even be a superior endgame challenge?
Of course this still leaves the derelict and\or phase jump inhibitor race(s) as possible options. I was going to suggest one or more species that'd spent millennia in hibernation for whatever reason, either deep within a planet, or perhaps some sort of aquatic or gas giant species, but the Vasari send their nanites everywhere so would likely have discovered any hidden faction. Perhaps a faction, or remnant that hid out in phase space? A sort of ridiculously extreme version of the Antorak Marauder's Phase Restoration perhaps? A remnant even more high tech than the Vasari couldn't explain what the unknown threat is - but could be a 4th faction right? On the other hand, if they had sought to escape their own synthetic or equivalent cataclysm, perhaps they 'awoke' when the Vasari's enemy got too close to them and they're now following the Vasari in escaping the threat and are thus harbingers in the traditional meaning of the term? Alternatively perhaps a remnant could be discoverable as new minor factions?
I realise this was supposed to be about adding endgame challenges, something RammaStardock said they may explore after the scenario pack, or closer to the 4th faction DLC release date, but doesn't it sort of overlap? Can the unknown threat chasing the Vasari be an end game challenge, or are they the 4th faction? Is there any intent for the unknown threat to make any appearance at all in SoaSE2, or will they remain hidden until SoaSE3?
Not sure if this'll prove interesting, enlightening, or inspire ideas for anyone else, but hopefully some others enjoy the brainstorming.
Fingers crossed this post works!!!
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